


Kokoro No Mondai

by MonsterParade



Category: Keroro Gunsou | Sgt. Frog
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Found Family, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Slice of Life, Trans Male Character, Zoruru eventually learns to love again, a family can be five frogs and one idiot, and that idiot is me, every single person in this is emotionally stunted, in which the Garuru platoon invades earth instead, or tries and fails because I nerfed them
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-07
Updated: 2020-09-07
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:01:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26265415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MonsterParade/pseuds/MonsterParade
Summary: If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?And if a spaceship crashes in the middle of an Arizona desert, does the resulting explosion almost drive a Volkswagen Beetle off the road?The former is an oft-quoted philosophical question that people have debated for ages, but the answer to the latter is a simple and resounding 'yes'.---Or; a family can be five alien frogs and one human, and sometimes it takes a change of pace to realize you deserve better.
Relationships: Zoruru/OC
Comments: 1
Kudos: 7





	Kokoro No Mondai

If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?  
  
And if a spaceship crashes in the middle of an Arizona desert, does the resulting explosion almost drive a Volkswagen Beetle off the road?  
  
The former is an oft-quoted philosophical question that people have debated for ages, but the answer to the latter is a simple and resounding 'yes'.  
  
Headlights flickering as the world around him shakes, Sylvie pulls to a halt at the edge of the road, the Beetle's front tires sliding forward into a ditch, and sticks his head out the window, staring at the blue-white flare dimming in the near distance. Whatever had just happened had nearly flattened the surrounding area-- whatever it was, it had streaked down out of the sky like a comet, almost too fast for the eye to follow, and the impact of it colliding with the earth had cast up enormous clouds of dust and sand, blocking out the stars and knocking over the scrubby trees and cacti.  
  
Sylvie opens his door and slides out of the car, leaving the door open and the lights on in his haste to find his footing and follow the glow of the fire. He doesn't stop to think about it, buzzing with the sudden shock and adrenaline-- just leaves the Bug there, keys in the ignition, and scrambles towards the flare, stepping around the fallen trunk of a saguaro on the way.  
  
It's _scary,_ the way his heart is pounding; he's the only one out here for miles, alone in the desert in the dead of night, running through the sand towards something completely unknown and probably alien and it's so exciting he almost can't breathe.  
  
This is it. This is the real start of his story-- this is something amazing, something _otherwordly,_ he just knows it.  
  
  
  
  
When he arrives at the site of the crash, the first thing that becomes obvious is that it was exactly that; a _crash,_ leaving a massive crater wider than a house sunken into the sand. The ground around it seems glossy in the moonlight, strangely smooth, and he almost slips as he steps onto it, testing his weight with one foot.  
  
...It's _glass._  
  
Whatever fell down out of the sky was _so hot_ that it super-heated the sand and melted it into glass, which is already cooling into a solid disk thanks to the frigid air. The desert gets cold at night. And tonight Sylvie is thankful for it, or he might have just put his foot right into a pool of molten glass, as foggy as everything is with all the dust in the air. He decides very firmly to be more careful where he steps from now on, even as he slowly begins to make his way across the glass pond like an unsteady newborn deer.  
  
He expects it to crackle under his feet like ice, but it doesn't. His footsteps are nearly silent, and the only sound other than him is the crackle of the fire at the center of the pit, still fully engulfing whatever mysterious thing had started it in the first place. It's almost impossible to see through all the smoke and flames, but as Sylvie edges even closer, he thinks he can see something metallic.  
  
 _A spaceship._ He can't actually see more than the edge of it but he just _knows_ it, it has to be-- _an alien spaceship._ It's _finally_ happening. If it wasn't on fire, he'd be all over it. As it is, he has no choice but to circle it carefully, trying to pick out details through the afterimages the licking flames leave behind.  
  
He doesn't even realize he isn't alone until something brushes against his shoulders, and then before he can even think about turning around, before he can even jump, something flashes past the left side of his face and the cold edge of a blade is suddenly pressing in against the hollow of his throat.  
  
He twitches automatically before he can tell himself to freeze, and his throat stings as the blade jostles and bites in. Cut, but not bleeding-- yet.  
  
Whatever lifeform is balancing itself on his shoulders leans in close to his ear and croaks.  
  
It's an odd sound, that croak; reminiscent of a frog, but not quite. It sounds more like a person trying to imitate a frog, maybe, or even more than that, it sounds like the noise a little monster might make. All low and throaty. Sylvie is extremely careful not to move, his mouth suddenly dry and sweat beading on his skin. He waits, and nothing moves.  
  
And he waits some more. Silence. Stillness. He's still not dumb enough to speak.  
  
Finally, the creature on his shoulders shifts, just a little, and then he hears a noise that to him almost sounds like someone clearing their throat, an impatient little _'a-hem'._ It would almost be funny if it wasn't so damn scary.  
  
The creature croaks again. And again; several this time, in quick succession. The blade under his chin doesn't relax, but that's not actually his main concern at the moment-- it's the fact that the sounds don't make any sense to him, but the cadence of it does. It doesn't just sound like animal sounds; it sounds like _speech_.  
  
"Are...you...talking...to me?" Sylvie finally whispers, very slowly, wishing he could see whatever or _whoever_ is hanging off his back and trying to speak. He's scared to raise his voice at all in case he startles the creature into slashing him, but luckily it's so close to his face that he doesn't have to.  
  
Whoever they are, they go very quiet for a minute and then eventually scoff, with a derision that carries across all species. They don't let him go, but he can feel them jostling, doing something or other behind his back.  
  
 _"Tch."_  
  
And just like that, he's free. The blade disappears from his throat and the mystery individual slips away, dropping off his shoulders, landing silently in the sand and standing their ground as he's finally allowed to turn around and look at them.  
  
He's not quite sure what to make of them, but whatever they are, they're...cute.  
  
Standing only about as tall as his knee, the first real thing he notices about them is that they only have one eye-- half of their face is obscured by something he can't see well enough to identify (metal, or stone?), and their one visible eye is a dark pit, the pupil a glowing red ember in the darkness. Their head is big and round, almost comically so, and their hands and feet are small, smooth; _except_ for their left hand, which is made up of long, razor metal claws at the end of a jagged arm. Their left leg seems to have gotten a similar treatment, with obvious segmentation in the metal allowing for it to bend.  
  
Some kind of ragged cloth drapes from their head and frames their face, like the shroud of a ghost, and they don't so much as blink as Sylvie gawks over them, too stunned to really do anything else. Swiftly, the glowing disk of their eye glances over him.  
  
He should be terrified, but he just can't quite bring himself to be. They're just too little and _cute_.  
  
Still, he's careful not to move.  
  
"Were you talking to me?" he whispers again, blinking slowly and deliberately because for some reason this creature's stare reminds him of a cat's and he can't think of anything else to _do_.  
  
The creature-- alien-- gazes into the darkness over his shoulder and doesn't answer.  
  
Sylvie slowly turns his head to follow it.  
  
They're looking at the burning spaceship, with its thick columns of black smoke bleeding far upward into the night sky. There's no emotion on their face that Sylvie can read, given that even their mouth is obscured by some kind of fabric, but somehow they don't seem particularly distraught about it.  
  
They also don't seem to care about _him_ anymore, either, a fact which is made evident when they suddenly stride past him without so much as a glance aside. Some silly part of him is a tiny bit offended, but mostly he's just relieved that they've decided he's not a threat; given the look of those claws alone, he doesn't want to go toe-to-toe with them at all.  
  
The alien presses their non-metal hand to their temple and speaks again, in a gesture, at least, which translates.  
  
 _E.T. phone home._  
  
"Are you lost?" Sylvie asks softly, very slowly lowering himself into a crouch so he can be at eye-level with the creature. It's a stupid question-- they wouldn't have landed their ship like that on _purpose_ \-- but the alien doesn't seem to be able to understand him anyway, so they just stare at him. To their side, the burning ship finally, slowly begins to smoulder out.  
  
  
  
  
  
Sylvie finds himself spending a long while just _watching_ the alien.  
  
Now that they've decided he's not worth killing, they just ignore his presence completely; pacing back and forth in front of the smoking ship, less nervous energy and more like a predator stalking to and fro, repeatedly attempting to call out to someone on whatever communication device is obviously hidden beneath their head-shroud. They do look over when he moves, settling down cross-legged in the sand to watch them, but as soon as it's clear that he has no intention of attacking them _or_ leaving their space, they turn away again and actually roll their eye. Somehow, the blatant attitude inherent in the familiar gesture is almost enough to make him laugh.  
  
Almost.  
  
"So...can you understand me at all?"  
  
No response. Not even a glance. Sylvie huffs, but isn't deterred. That's only to be expected, after all. He can't understand them either.  
  
"Are you hurt? Do you have a name? What happened?"  
  
Nothing. He might as well be part of the scenery-- or perhaps to the alien, he's just wildlife, making his noises at them while they try to go about their business. But they aren't scared of him, at least, so he just counts himself immensely lucky to get to study them like this, so close by.  
  
By now his adrenaline from earlier has settled into a kind of steady buzz, not really mellowing but no longer making his heart leap out of his chest, either, and gingerly he touches the tender line on his throat where the edge of their blade had bitten into his skin. They don't seem to be holding any weapons, so he supposes it must have been their claw.  
  
Knowing he came so close to death at the hands of an unknown entity should have made him run screaming for the hills, in retrospect, but all the knowledge does is make him all warm and tingly inside, because it means he's now a part of something _bigger_. He's been seen, acknowledged, and even _accepted_ , after a fashion. It's euphoric.  
  
"...My name's Sylvie," he offers up insistently, determined to find some small form of communication.  
  
The alien spares him a disinterested glance.  
  
"Sylvie," he repeats, pointing to himself, "I'm Sylvie. You?"  
  
He points towards the alien as well, certain that they're intelligent enough to understand what he's trying to say-- and again, he gets that scoff, as they narrow their eye at him and turn away. They're making it very clear that they have no intention of communicating with him, and that _does_ sting. It's enough to make him frown.  
  
 _[ Krrzz-- Zoruru? ]_  
  
Sylvie startles. It's the first identifiable word he's heard since all this started, and he whips his head around in surprise, trying to locate the source of the sound before he realizes that it's coming from the alien's hidden communicator. The alien's hand flies up, and Sylvie leans forward.  
  
"Tororo," they reply, looking around in the edges of the darkness. After that it's just more croaking, from both ends; a hurried conversation, the mysterious individual on the other end of the line sounding squeaky and out of breath. They say each others' names a few more times, along with several more; Sylvie thinks he catches the words 'Garuru' and 'Pururu', which he assumes must be friends of theirs, following that same naming convention. And if that's true, that means he knows his unwilling acquaintance's name now, too-- Zoruru. He mutters it to himself under his breath while the aliens converse.  
  
 _Zoruru._  
  
"Tororo," Zoruru says insistently, followed up by a bout of croaking that has the cadence of a question. He cocks his head and listens, intently, to the silence on the other end, and then very suddenly he straightens up and turns to stare into the dark as the line crackles. His gaze slides past Sylvie, and for a moment there looks to be something like a faint concern there.  
  
And then he's moving, and then he's gone, too quick to even track with the naked eye. He dashes off into the desert so quickly that nothing remains of him but his footprints, and Sylvie doesn't so much as hesitate before pushing himself up off the ground and scrambling after him, breaking into the fastest run he can.  
  
He has a feeling they're about to go on a rescue mission.


End file.
